Contemplation as an act of letting go

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Contemplation as an act of letting go and allowing ourselves to be sculpted into a masterpiece:

According to ancient theory of art, the practice of sculpting has less to do with fashioning a figure of one’s choosing than with being able to see in the stone the figure waiting to be liberated. The sculptor imposes nothing but only frees what is held captive in stone. The practice of contemplation is something like this. It does not work by means of addition or acquisition, but by release, chiseling away thought-shackled illusions of separation from God. . . . Contemplative practice proceeds by way of the engaged receptivity of release, of prying loose, of letting go of the need to have our life circumstances be a certain way in order for us to live or pray or be deeply happy. . . . With enough of this stone removed, the chiseling becomes a quiet excavation of the present moment. What emerges from the chiseled and richly veined poverty of the present moment? The emerging figure is our life as Christ (Phil. 1:21; Col. 3:3-4). [1]

[1] Martin Laird, A Sunlit Absence: Silence, Awareness, and Contemplation (Oxford University Press: 2011), 60-61.

From Richard Rohr’s Daily Meditations September 2016

http://thecenterforactionandcontemplation.cmail20.com/t/ViewEmail/d/BFDE9805EC8905A1/01F5CC100F253DFD0F8C96E86323F7F9

Contemplation as Letting Go

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Contemplation as Letting Go

Friday, September 2, 2016

It’s really hard to “sell” contemplation because it’s precisely like selling nothing. For Americans, contemplative prayer is counter-intuitive. Even worse, it is, at least for me, a daily practice of assured failure! If you are into success, you will give up quite early on. Contemplation is largely teaching you how to let go—how to let go of your attachment to your self-image, your expectations, your very ideas. Every such “set up” is a resentment waiting to happen. So maybe we are just redefining success as foundational happiness and contentment.

As you gradually learn to let go, you learn how to rest in what some call “the eternal now,” a kind of present satisfaction with the present as it is. You don’t need to manipulate or change the moment in order to be happy. What is starts being enough to make you happy, although to get there, you must be tested many times by your anger and fear about what is not. I must be honest with you here. Contemplation trains you how to let go of what you think is success, so you can find the ultimate success of simple happiness.

I’m going to say something that maybe will sound like heresy, but I’m offering you a “pearl of great price.” De facto “salvation” has little to do with belief systems, belonging to the right group, or correct ritual practice. It has everything to do with living right here, right now, and knowing a beautiful and fully accepting God is this very moment giving to you. All you can do is sit down at the banquet and eat. If you can enjoy heaven now, you are totally prepared and ready for heaven later.

Perhaps another metaphor will make this clearer. In A Sunlit Absence, Martin Laird, OSA—a brilliant teacher of contemplation at Villanova University—illustrates contemplation as an act of letting go and allowing ourselves to be sculpted into a masterpiece:

According to ancient theory of art, the practice of sculpting has less to do with fashioning a figure of one’s choosing than with being able to see in the stone the figure waiting to be liberated. The sculptor imposes nothing but only frees what is held captive in stone. The practice of contemplation is something like this. It does not work by means of addition or acquisition, but by release, chiseling away thought-shackled illusions of separation from God. . . . Contemplative practice proceeds by way of the engaged receptivity of release, of prying loose, of letting go of the need to have our life circumstances be a certain way in order for us to live or pray or be deeply happy. . . . With enough of this stone removed, the chiseling becomes a quiet excavation of the present moment. What emerges from the chiseled and richly veined poverty of the present moment? The emerging figure is our life as Christ (Phil. 1:21; Col. 3:3-4). [1]

Gateway to Silence:
Let be. Let love.

 

References:

[1] Martin Laird, A Sunlit Absence: Silence, Awareness, and Contemplation (Oxford University Press: 2011), 60-61.

Adapted from Richard Rohr, Holding the Tension, an unpublished talk given in Houston, Texas (2007).

God is this very moment giving to you

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…“salvation” has little to do with belief systems, belonging to the right group, or correct ritual practice. It has everything to do with living right here, right now, and knowing a beautiful and fully accepting God is this very moment giving to you. All you can do is sit down at the banquet and eat. If you can enjoy heaven now, you are totally prepared and ready for heaven later.

Richard Rhor . Daily Meditation Sep 2, 2016

Running A Race With Your Eyes On the Goal.

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Fr. William Meninger Homily_August 13, 2016 and  a guided meditation from Cardinal John Newman (Prayer used by Mother Theresa)

Homily

 The readings this morning are complicated and diverse so I would like to focus on just one important line from the epistle to the Hebrews. It is very relevant to the interest right now on the Olympic games. The imagery is that of running a race with your eyes on the goal. The author says, “Run the race that lies before you by keeping your eyes fixed on Jesus”. This, of course, is at the very heart of what it means to be a Christian. to be a follower of Christ. We must keep our eyes fixed on him with the purpose and intensity of an athlete striving for victory. What we sometimes don’t realize however is that we already have the victory, Christ has won it for us, we have simply to reach out and claim it as our own.

 Somebody has said that “the error of the past is the wisdom of the future”. This means that our failures, the times when we have allowed our eyes to drift from the goal, from following Jesus, should be an impetus and actually an encouragement supporting us in returning to that goal which is Jesus.

 We do realize, all of us, that the most basic and fundamental teaching of Jesus is one of love. Not just love of God, but like unto it love of neighbor. This is why Jesus would say that whatever we do unto one of the least of his brethren we do  unto him. And why St. John tells us that we cannot love God whom we do not see unless we love our brother and sister whom we do see. Richard Rohr reminds us that love is our very structural and essential identity. To live in conscious connection with the loving inner presence of God is to find our true self. Plato says, “We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark. The real tragedy is when a man or woman is afraid of the light.”

 I would like to do something now that is a little bit unusual for a homily. I would like to bring us into an experienced connection, another type of communion if you will, with the love of Jesus, of God and of one another. I would like to take you through a brief, guided meditation. This meditation is a prayer written by the English theologian , Cardinal, John Newman. It is a prayer that Mother Theresa tells us she recited every day of her life.

 So I would ask you to sit as comfortably as you can, perhaps close your eyes and just for a brief moment try to be aware of God’s presence within you and about you, as Jesus said, where two or three are gathered together in my name there am I in the midst of them and the kingdom of God is within you. (Brief pause). And now with great sincerity, listen with your hearts and offer this prayer keeping your eyes fixed on Jesus.

 

Dear Jesus, help me to spread Your fragrance everywhere I go.

Flood my soul with Your spirit and life.

Penetrate and possess my whole being so utterly,

That my life may only be a radiance of Yours.

 

Shine through me, and be so in me

That every soul I come in contact with

May feel Your presence in my soul.

Let them look up and see no longer me, but only Jesus!

 

Stay with me and then I shall begin to shine as You shine,

So to shine as to be a light to others;

The light, O Jesus will be all from You; none of it will be mine;

It will be you, shining on others through me.

 

Let me thus praise You the way You love best, by shining on those around me.

Let me preach You without preaching, not by words but by my example,

By the catching force of the sympathetic influence of what I do,

The evident fullness of the love my heart bears to You.

 

Amen.

 

—

May you be happy,

May you be free,

May you be loving,

May you be loved.

 

Father William Meninger

Fr. William Meninger Homily July 3_Do you know what the last word is?

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July 3, 2016

 When someone has an important agenda, for example, he or she is running for office and has an original, significant platform to offer, they send out advance men. Today this takes the form of news conferences, political rallies, media interviews, public debates and so forth. Well, we see in today’s Gospel ,Jesus also had his own way of sending out advance men and women and his own particular instructions. If he were doing this today, Jesus would not have given those precise instructions that we just heard. It would not be politically correct or even sociologically advantageous to curse those who did not accept his platform.. Also shaking dust off of the feet is not today a very effective method of communicating disapproval.

 Even personally I know that when I leave the monastery several times a year to go on a mission teaching  centering prayer or the process of forgiveness and sharing,if you will, the platform of my community, the only limitations I observe in my packing are the requirements of United Airlines.

 Today we are, each one of us, the advance men and women for Jesus. Christianity has grown. Instead of 72 Jesus now has millions. We take a different approach today. In fact we take millions of different approaches. Each one of us according to his or her own calling, own graces, own talents, station in life, occupation,  personal relationships and even own weaknesses serves as advance persons for the platform and the coming of Jesus into our world.

We are the inheritors of those 72 disciples and Jesus sends us into our times with the same message of peace and love. When we sincerely try to do this, we will discover that even the demons are subject to us and Satan will fall from the heavens.

There is a very real sense in which we can say that what we read in the Scriptures is not the last word. While we do understand that Jesus is the first and the last word, the Alpha and the Omega, that word is today communicated to the world through us, through you and me.

Do you know what the last word is? It is not what Jesus said 2000 years ago it is what you do yesterday, today and tomorrow. The last word of divine revelation is spoken by the Holy Spirit through you and me. The last word is the last kindness you did to someone else, it is the last time you prayed for others, it is the last time you fed someone who was hungry, clothed someone who was naked, sheltered someone who was homeless, instructed someone who was ignorant, encouraged someone who was doubtful, admonished someone who had fallen from grace or comforted someone who was in grief.

 Indeed the kingdom of God is at hand. Look about you. It is on your right hand and your left. It is where you were yesterday, where you are now and where you shall be tomorrow. You don’t have to pack for it or even sally forth into the world, it is at hand. God has sent the Spirit of his son into our hearts and you and I and the Holy Spirit are his advance men…Are you ready?

May you be happy,

May you be free,

May you be loving,

May you be loved.

Father William Meninger

Contemplative Prayer and the Birthright to what is already within you

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Contemplative prayer is the change that changes everything. It’s not telling you what to see, but teaching you how to see. And when you know how to see, you’re home free. You’re indestructible. When you know how to see in a non-dualistic, holistic way, you know that it is what it is both before and after any analysis. Reality still is what it is. When you learn to surrender to that, quite frankly, you’re going to be a much happier, transformed human being. And when you do work for change, your efforts will have a non-obsessive character to them.

The contemplative mind gives you access to your birthright, to what is already within you. When you discover and connect to this awareness, you will have the distinct feeling that you already knew this. Spiritual cognition is recognition. It’s knowing on a more conscious level what appears to have been known in the unconscious. Now you have the ability to humbly, quietly trust it, and even on occasion say what so many biblical characters and saints say, “God told me.” I know that can be a dangerous claim. If you put such power in the hands of egocentric people, they’ll mangle and misuse God-told-me kind of talk.

The gift of contemplation will be experienced as freedom, abundance, love, spaciousness, and grace. This entire experience of gratuity makes you fall in love with God. In fact, I would say that utter gratuity is one of the clearest indicators of any authentic God experience. But it also installs its own critique. When you know the real thing, you start developing a nose, an eye, and an ear for the false thing. You can recognize truly converted people. And you can smell people who are just using the church, sacraments, or priesthood to aggrandize themselves. For them it’s still all about “me.” When you move to the level of divine mind, the mind of Christ, you know it’s not all about you. In fact, it is all about God! And you will soon find yourself loving all that God loves–which is going to be an ever widening circle of realizations and loves.

At that point, you have been taken into the very life of the Trinity. You are already there, objectively, but most of us don’t know it yet. When you start flowing consciously and allowing the divine flow through you, you will share the experience of gratuity expressed by the Psalmist: “Not to us, Lord, not to us but to your name give glory because of your mercy and faithfulness” (Psalm 115:1).

Reference:

Adapted from Richard Rohr, Transforming the World through Contemplative Prayer (CAC: 2013), CD, MP3 audio download

Richard Rhor Meditation June 29,2016

Litany of the Holy Spirit

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Litany of the Holy Spirit

Pure Gift of God

Indwelling Presence

Promise of the Father

Life of Jesus

Pledge and Guarantee

Defense Attorney

Inner Anointing

Homing Device

Stable Witness

Peacemaker

Always Already Awareness

Compassionate Observer

God Compass

Inner Breath

Mutual Yearning

Hidden Love of God

Implanted Hope

Seething Desire

Fire of Life and Love

Truth Speaker

Flowing Stream

Wind of Change

Descending Dove

Cloud of Unknowing

Uncreated Grace

Filled Emptiness

Deepest Level of Our Longing

Sacred Wounding

Holy Healing

Will of God

Great Compassion

Inherent Victory

 

You who pray in us, through us, with us, for us, and in spite of us.

Amen, Alleluia!

________________________________

When we come to the end of our rope and hit rock bottom, we are not dashed but fall into God’s hands. It is here at our lowest that we discover our true source of power, the indwelling Holy Spirit. Many years ago, during a hermitage in Arizona, I had a particularly strong sense of the Holy Spirit, the One who is fully available to all of us “if we but knew the gift of God” (John 4:10). I slowly composed this prayer–imagining many names and movements of the Spirit–to awaken and strengthen this Presence within you. Recite it whenever you are losing faith in God or in yourself.

Reference:Adapted from Richard Rohr, The Naked Now: Learning to See as the Mystics See (The Crossroad Publishing Company: 2009), 168-169.

Trinity Homily. Fr. W. Meninger at St. Andrews Episcopal Church 2014

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Fr. William Meninger click here for audio

Friends,

Fr. William delivered this homily  on Trinity Sunday, June 15, 2014 at St. Andrews Episcopal Church , Seattle. When he set  his notes down and began to preach, I knew I was a part of a Holy Spirit inspired moment.

The audio below is about 30 minutes in length.  Give a listen. In the seven or eight years of my close association and travels with Fr. William, I believe it to be one of his three finest teachings. (The other two in my estimation is his teaching on Julian of Norwich and the New Creation Mythology. The other is the Loving Search for God and the Spiritual Journey using the 12th-century Buddhist ox herding pictures as a paradigm for the spiritual journey developed from a paper he delivered at the annual Academy of Religion in San Diego , November 2014.)

If someone is able to transcribe the sermon , will you please let me know and email it to me in PDF. I would like to make it a part of Fr. William’s archival history. Thank you in advance.

Blessings,

-Dan

Dan Dobbins dandobbins10@gmail.com

Fr. William Meninger click here for audio

Fr. William Meninger Homily 2016

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May 22, 2016

Trinity Sunday

 The teaching of the Christian church on the holy Trinity is considered to be possibly the most sublime doctrine of divine revelation. Most churches consider that belief in the Trinity, that is three persons in one God, is the deciding factor that determines whether  a given church is a Christian church or not. Belief systems that do not embrace the Trinitarian doctrine, of necessity do not believe in the divinity of Christ and therefore are not really considered Christian,however much they may lay claim to the name.

 The word Trinity comes from two Latin words tri and unity which simply means three in one, our theological way of expressing the three persons in the one God. This teaching is a mystery and therefore is not completely open to total understanding on our part. This is not really a problem for us as we readily acknowledge that God is beyond our understanding. Nonetheless the tri unity of God is revealed to us in the Scriptures and therefore has meaning for us and we should seek some practical understanding of it because of  our faith in the Trinity.

In fact, however, what do you understand about the doctrine of the Trinity? How would you explain it to a child? To an unbeliever? Even to a fellow Christian?

I recall some 30 years ago I was invited for dinner to the home of a large extended Muslim family in the Gaza Strip. The men were all seated in a large circle on the floor of the dining room. I was seated next to the ancient patriarch of the family. In the middle of the meal (I was on the point of devouring a large piece of succulent roast lamb) he turned to me and said, “What is this Trinity all about?”.

I greatly fear that I was not adequate to the occasion and subsequently wished I had at least the presence of mind of Saint Patrick who, in a similar situation, simply said the Trinity was like the three leaf clover, that is three leaves one clover, three persons one God. But even so, how practical, how meaningful is that simple explanation?

60 years ago, in the seminary we spent an entire semester on the theology of the Trinity. It had little practical meaning for me then and today I am forced to examine what meaning it has had for me since. My response to the seminary course on the Trinity was that it was God giving us a private glimpse of what he might look like behind the shower curtain.

In the past 60 years my understanding of the Trinity has been enhanced by several significant experiences. The first was at the death of my eldest sister, Helen. As I stood by her deathbed saying the prayers for the dying these words were spoken to my very heart: Depart, Christian soul in the name of the Father who created you, in the name of the son who redeemed you, and in the name of the Holy Spirit who sanctifies you. This is very practical, isn’t it? Our creation, our redemption, and our sanctification.

 My second significant, practical experience of the Trinity came through my reading of Julian of Norwich. In her wonderful book, The Revelations of Divine Love, the Lady Julian speaks of the power of the Father, the wisdom of the Son, and the benevolent love of the Holy Spirit. She also says that where we experience one person of the Trinity, for example, the incarnation of the son in Jesus of Nazareth, we also experience the other two persons of the Trinity. This is why Jesus could say, “He who sees me sees the Father.” And” I will not leave you orphans but I will send to you the Paraclete, the Spirit of truth, who will remind you of all that I have taught.” And so, Julian reminds us, that the presence of Jesus in our lives today and the presence of the Holy Spirit and the Father is one and the same.

So as a practical understanding, as we are gathered here this morning as the church, Jesus is present in our midst and so is the Father and the Holy Spirit. As we hear the words of the Scriptures inspired by the Holy Spirit so we hear the words of Jesus and the Father. And finally as we shall be recreated in the one body of Christ through the reception of holy Communion, so we are re-created as sons and daughters of the eternal Father in the love and benevolence of his Holy Spirit. Blessed be the holy and undivided Trinity now and forever! 

—

May you be happy,

May you be free,

May you be loving,

May you be loved.

 Father William Meninger

Radical Transformation _ Richard Rhor

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Radical Transformation
Thursday, May 12, 2016
Mature religion teaches contemplation as a path to true transformation. But before we are ready to be shaken and changed at our roots, we need religion at its lower levels to help us develop a healthy ego. Ken Wilber describes religion’s different roles along the spiritual and developmental journey:
[Religion] itself has always performed two very important, but very different, functions. One, it acts as a way of creating meaning for the separate self: it offers myths and stories and tales and narratives and rituals and revivals, that, taken together, help the separate self make sense of, and endure, the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.
This is good and needed. That’s how you get started. As psychology would say, you have to have an ego to let go of an ego. You have to have a self to move beyond the self. But most religion stops at this first function, simply giving you a positive self-image and identity–that I’m religious, moral, dedicated, or whatever my sense of worth and belonging might be. Wilber continues:
This function of religion does not usually or necessarily change the level of consciousness in a person; it does not deliver radical transformation. Nor does it deliver a shattering liberation from the separate self altogether. Rather, it consoles the self, fortifies the self, defends the self, promotes the self. As long as the separate self believes the myths, performs the rituals, mouths the prayers, or embraces the dogma, then the self, it is fervently believed, will be “saved”–either now in the glory of being God-saved or Goddess-favored, or in an afterlife that ensures eternal wonderment.
We’re never totally sure what “saved” is supposed to mean, but everybody uses the word rather glibly. I suppose in most Western Christians’ minds it means going to heaven, that I’m going to get some reward later for behaving or believing in a certain way. It sounds like a very bad reward/punishment novel. It’s preposterous that anybody believes this could be the Great God’s simplistic agenda, but if you haven’t really worked with it (and I’m fortunate that I have had time to work with it), you believe it because everybody else does. You figure this many people can’t be wrong. They must be right that life is a giant reward/punishment system, and if you jump through the hoops properly, you’ll get the reward. It’s not really about becoming “a new creation” (Galatians 6:15). You don’t have to be transformed; you just have to play the game right. This is first half of life religion. It deals with the small self, the false self, and is all about requirements.
Wilber goes on to explain the second function of religion:
But two, religion has also served–in a usually very, very small minority–the function of radical transformation and liberation. This function does not fortify the separate self, but utterly shatters it–not consolation but devastation, not entrenchment but emptiness, not complacency but explosion, not comfort but revolution–in short, not a conventional bolstering of consciousness but a radical transmutation and transformation at the deepest seat of consciousness itself. [1]
This is true religious conversion. This is second half of life religion, although it can happen at any age. The experience occurs when God or life destabilizes your private ego, usually through some form of suffering. It will feel like dying because it is the death of the false self. The small, separate self is shattered, and your True Self is revealed. The True Self is all about right relationship, not requirements. It’s not about being correct; it’s about being connected, which you always were–you just didn’t realize it. This is the self that is capable of contemplation because it no longer reads reality from an egocentric position.
Contemplation is indeed radical because it’s a way of being in the world, walking in the world, and seeing the world that is absolutely different than the daily grind of ideas and contests.
Gateway to Silence
AND
References:
[1] Ken Wilber, One Taste: Daily Reflections on Integral Spirituality(Shambhala: 2000), 25-26.
Adapted from Richard Rohr, Contemplative Prayer (CAC: 2007), CD, MP3 download.